Hydrangea
by ladycortana
Summary: AU. Touka saves Kaneki's life one night when he tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. What he doesn't know is that Touka desired to do the same thing. Trapped by despair, the two decide to make a terrible promise: to kill themselves together when fall arrives. But, could love be strong enough to give them a reason to keep on living? One-shot.


**«Hydrangea»**

Everything belongs to Sui Ishida.

 **Summary:  
** AU. Touka saves Kaneki's life one night when he tries to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. What he doesn't know is that Touka desired to do the same thing. Trapped by despair, the two decide to make a terrible promise: to kill themselves together when fall arrives. But, could love be strong enough to give them a reason to keep on living? One-shot.

* * *

 **A/N:** I recommend you all to listen to the fanfic playlist I made (which you can find in my tumblr, ladywongs) to get a more immersive experience.

* * *

 **Winter.**

* * *

That night, the wind whispers a song.

The subdued melody travels upon the chilly pavements of a boulevard, its voice hoarse and eerie. Stranded cars lie still with flat tires and disgruntled owners, sirens screech loud and hollow in the distance as motorcycles run by. Their engines old and rusty spew out intense smoke trails, thick and black as the sky that looms above a lone young man.

The twenty year old boy's gaze flickers upward, meeting the night's cold stare as a wintry breeze travels around him, flitting the bangs of his dark hair. Trembling fingers clutch the beams of a bridge that never looked so terrifying and manacing as it did now; so high and seductive. Beautiful like a woman compelling him, seducing him closer and closer into such a forbidden act; tempting him with cold, sweet kisses from the winds that caress his bare skin. Soft touches that promise sweet release.

Certainly the perfect place to die in style.

One, two, three.

He has to jump. Lunge forward and let the river engulf him like the shadows that, for so long, chased him. Lunge forward and leave everything behind, the sound of the city, his mother's screams, Hide's sweet smile, and the desolation he once considered his loyal friend... only three seconds is enough to end all of it.

Only three seconds.

Kaneki blinks and holds his breath. "It won't hurt..." he says, trying to reassure himself. "Not while you're under water. It'll be like falling asleep. Given the impossibility to keep breathing, your body will naturally faint and you won't fight against the instinct to breathe. It won't hurt, it'll only be three seconds. It won't hurt, it'll be epic, a thrill. Like a ride... it won't hurt..." Over and over, in his head he comforts himself with reassurance and promise.

One... two... three.

He flickers his gaze back up to the starry sky and decides that this will be the last thing he will see before dying. He always loved stars. He knew every constellation, every story rammed inside every name on the pages of his wrinkled books. If he was lucky maybe he would become reincarnated as a star or his spirit will be a part of the galaxies like a tiny insect trapped inside a cobweb. He looks down once more, staring at the water beneath him and it isn't until the wind's breath sighs a coo into his face that he notices tears caressing the skin of his cheeks. For a moment, he wants to giggle.

Pathetic. He's so pathetic.

This is why he's here, right?

One... two... three...

It was a good life, maybe.

One... two... three...

He will miss Hide, that's for sure.

One... two... three...

And books. Especially books.

One... two... three...

Why doesn't he jump? Come on... only a simple step, a quick jump. It doesn't have to be big.

One... two... three...

Jump, jump, jump...

One... two... thr—

"What are you doing?"

The young boy's eyes blink a couple of times, his hands still cling firmly to the steel girders and for a moment he thinks that the voice has spoken again. He had heard it before, that voice that whispers against his ear, the voice that taught him how things really were in his life. _Nobody loves you, you're useless. Your mother despises you and your best friend only pities you. You have no one... you're pathetic._ The same voice that forced him to abandon the discomfort of his home, to climb up the bridge of the city with the intention to die in style. What was he doing? Wasn't that obvious?

"Hey idiot, I'm talking to you."

However, Kaneki didn't remember the voice in his head to sound like the voice of a girl. He blinks again and begins to feel flustered, his mouth pulling into a deep frown with sweat pooling from his pores as his head turns to follow the voice that strangely reminds him of spring. Then he sees her. She's right beside him, just a few steps away from him sitting on the bridge with the feet hanging over the abyss he was about to abandon him to. A girl that clings to the beams with the same intensity as his own, smoking a cigarette in complete silence. Her bob hair dances within the wind as her curious eyes stare at him meticulously, like she's trying to decode some kind of enigma.

He has seen her before. They go to the same school, they even take the same train every morning. She always sits by the window, near the door with her purple headphones and her bunny backpack. Her eyes always become lost in the cold landscape on the way to school and she never takes her gaze away from the window until the train stops and it's time to get off. She speaks to no one, never looks at anyone and Kaneki would be lying if he says he's never stopped his book reading to covertly stare at her. She always sports the same green jacket with her purple socks whose color match her short and messy hair. Thick locks of hair cover her right eye as though she's trying to seek shelter from the world. Her gaze is sharp and cold, like blinking stars far too tired to shine and for a masochist like Kaneki, looking at her every single morning on the way to school is the best torture of all.

Her inquisitive eyes scrutinize his pale face, waiting for an answer.

"I'm trying to kill myself," he says a few seconds after.

One, two, three...

She frowns slowly, cherry lips sighing the smoke of her cig with grace. For a moment, he catches a glimpse of melancholy in her eyes.

"Me too..." she admits, squinting her eyes after an uncomfortable pause. "You don't strike me as someone who wants to commit suicide." she adds afterwards, taking in his appearance one more time and concludes, "Actually, I don't think you have the guts to do it.

Her honesty makes him smile. From his lips, a dry and bitter giggle comes to life.

"You would be surprised." He whispers and the kindness shining within his eyes, minutes after jumping off into the abyss, provokes a mess in her mind.

No one would ever smile in a moment like this.

Why is he smiling?

She pauses, haunting eyes trying to decipher an extremely complicated puzzle.

"What's your name?"

Why does she ask now? Why, when they have been together in the same train? He sat in front of her multiple times, memorizing the shape of her face since they were little. His eyes would search for her presence, impatient and restless every morning. His pencil, looped between his twirling fingures, outlined her figure over his notebook hidden behind his favorite book, trying to capture the same gloomy gaze she would give to the window she would sit by every single day. Her eyes seemingly filled with desire; a longing for an escape, like a fleeting butterfly inside a cruel, cold cage. Why now when he was about to finally find his own freedom? When he had finally made up his decision, why?

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.

It was cruel.

Despite this, he finds himself answering her question. And every second passing by is one more second of life when all Kaneki wanted was to find death.

"K-Kaneki," he stutters while a tiny dimple pops out on his cheek when his lips purse into a sheepish smile. "I'm Kaneki."

"Kaneki." She repeats, drawing out the taste of his name on her tongue. She nods her head in acknowledgement. "I'm Tou-"

"Touka," he interrupts suddenly, nodding repeatedly at her with his sheepish smile still present. "Touka Kirishima, I know."

Touka frowns, almost offended, but Kaneki still thinks she looks cute when she's angry.

"Do you know me?" she asks curtly.

"W-We go to the same school and take the same train every morning." He answers, his expression becoming nervous.

Her features relax as renewed curiosity dances across her eyes, almost shimmering.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Wow."

"Yeah..."

One... two... three...

He is aware that three minutes have passed that were supposed to be those last three seconds and his body would be in the deepest part of the river. He knows, but minutes continue to pass on and soon Touka finishes her cigarette; tossing it into the water without a core and Kaneki's feet are beginning to feel sore for standing over the cold beams for so many hours. For a moment he considers imitating the young girl beside him and take a seat to ease his feet of the stress, but his clumsiness is his worst enemy and he fears that he just may slide off and fall into the cold waters.

But... wasn't that what he really wanted? Was it not the reason he ventured here in the first place?

"And, tell me Kaneki," Touka's sudden voice fills the air and eases the tension in the air, creating a casual atmosphere that seems more bizarre than it previously was moments before. "Why do you want to kill yourself?"

He doesn't even bother to find a proper answer.

"I'm a loser basically." He affirms, shrugging his shoulder, but just for an instant he swears he catches Touka with a tiny smile, full of irony, but the darkness of the night is too dense to confirm. "You?"

"Life sucks." she says it so simply and Kaneki nods and almost laughs at her response.

Yeah, life really did suck.

"Are you going to...? Well, I mean..."

"Jump?" she finishes for him.

Kaneki nods.

"I don't know." She answers, eyes peering down into the lake beneath them. "I think so. I'm... well, I was waiting for..." she pauses for a moment before she turns her head away, conflicted. "I don't know... And you?"

"I was going to," his statement makes him hate her. She ruined his plans. "but... you spoke to me and..."

Touka's face lights up with a playful grin, her head tilting to one side. "I'm sorry I screwed up your suicide."

Kaneki looks away, ashamed.

"I-It's fine."

"You wanna do it now?"

Her question takes his breath away. He flicks up his gaze, nervous as can be, and his fingers cling more firmly to the beams. The metal feels so cold that he can't even feel his fingers anymore.

"W-What? R-Right now?"

"We can do it together if you want. I don't care."

One... two... three...

A gasp is the only sound escaping his lips. Is she crazy? Touka remains silent and Kaneki doesn't bother to answer immediately. Minutes pass, cars keep circulating and the river underneath them remains intact. Their bodies keep holding onto the beams of the bridge and Kaneki sighs with defeat. All of this is sudeenly useless.

"The truth is..." he whispers and Touka tilts her face up to stare at him from the side. Her shady eyes glint like the stars under the moonlight. "I'm scared. I thought it would be quick... o-once I climb up here. But the truth is that I took over an hour preparing myself, standing here before you came.

Touka's feet swing underneath her, like the legs of a little girl; carefree and whimsical.

"It's okay. I'm scared too."

Unexpectedly, both of them laugh. It was Kaneki that burst into a fit of laughter and it makes her smile along and for a moment he has to secure his grip on the beams otherwise he'll fall. Touka giggles, from her lips a mist becomes a ghost in the frigid air and it looks like pure life and the sound of their laughter singing at unison creates a whole new song. One that Kaneki has never heard before. And he loves it. He loves it so much. Touka's eyes shimmer with shameful little tears that she has to grind her tummy to control her chuckles.

"We are pathetic aren't we?" She inquires.

He nods. He doesn't know why, but he wants to cry too.

"Yeah, we are."

Go out in the early days of winter, after the first cold snap of the season. Find a pool of water with a sheet of ice across the top, still fresh and new and clear as glass. Near the shore, the ice will hold you. Slide out farther and farther and eventually, you'll find the place where the surface just barely bears your weight. The ice splinters under your feet. Look down and you can see the white cracks darting through the ice like mad, elaborate spiderwebs. It is perfectly silent, but you can feel the sudden sharp vibrations trough the bottoms of your feet. That is what happened when Touka smiled at Kaneki.

And her eyes were the only thing that Kaneki truly admired that night, the only universe that didn't reside in the sky above his head. To him, her eyes were the universe, the starlight reflected in her pupils, that spark that flared up in her gaze; it all captivated him that night. He looked at her with the intention of saying something clever, one of those phrases he had been practicing year after year in order to gain courage and approach her, talk to her and say hi inside of that train. But when her eyes met his, the words abandoned him. He remained mute; for a long eternity he belonged to her.

"Are you hungry?" It's the first thing he asks without thinking, without hesitating. "I-I... uhm, I brought some money with me. It's a-absurd, I know. It's not as if I would need it at a moment like this. Actually, I d-don't even know why I have it with me. More out of habit, I think, in case I see a bookstore... although my best friend says that it's because I'm an—"

"An idiot?" Touka disrupts.

Kaneki nods, shrugging.

"Yeah, kind of..."

"You quite look like an idiot." She nods too.

"I-I guess so."

However, Kaneki doesn't take it as an insult.

"Fine then. Let's eat something. If we're going to commit suicide, at least better to be with a full stomach, right?"

* * *

Kaneki's money is not enough to buy two burgers, but surprisingly, Touka had brought some money as well in her wallet. They buy their burgers, sodas and talk. About everything, about nothing at all, about Kaneki's books, about the coffee that Touka likes to prepare. He notices tiny marks on her skin, scars that shine like diamonds on her skin, some of them are a brighter, some of them are red than others and when she catches his inquiring gaze, she covers her wrists with the sleeves of her jacket; hiding them. He can't find the courage to ask.

"My mom died when I was a baby and my dad left home," she said, taking a sip of her coke. "I live with my brother. He's an ass. What about you?"

"I live with my mother." He answered without offering additional details.

But Touka is smart.

"It's not nice. Right?"

"Nope. It's not."

As the hours tick by slowly, Kaneki discovers things about Touka that he never noticed before during their trips on the train every morning. Her eyes would change color depending on the lighting; sometimes they were tinted with blue, other times more purple appearing almost a solid, shimmering black. When she smiles, even with mischievousness, her pale cheeks would warm up into a tender rosy shade. She pushed back a lock of hair behind her ear every time she was lying, like when he asked her what those marks were on her wrists and she simply said that she hurt herself while riding a bike. She liked rabbits, no, she loved rabbits and her favorite book was Illusions, by Richard Bach. She said she knew how to prepare lattes with rabbit designs and that she wanted to own her own coffee shop in the future; her confessions were extremely bizarre to Kaneki. Talking about the future when minutes ago both wanted to end their lives atop that bridge. She cursed a lot too, but it made him laugh and Kaneki found that he couldn't stop laughing, not when he's with her.

Touka smiles, smiles and frowns when Kaneki says something stupid. She curses him, smiles again and it's a journey that Kaneki would've loved to experience over and over again, but he sees that her smile never reaches her eyes completely. Touka smiles, but her eyes look empty and cold, like a sky with no stars.

When the night becomes too dark and the streets of Tokyo are almost empty, both of them decide to return home and in the same way that everything started, both have to take the same train in which both travel to school every morning. But this time is different. This time it is night. This time, Touka sits by his side. This time she knows his name and she repeats it constantly and this time, he's not invisible to her.

This time, Touka doesn't look through the window. This time, she closes her eyes amd rests her cheek on his shoulder, giving in. They're not in the restaurant anymore, there's no need to keep pretending, the train is empty and Touka holds on to him in the same way that he was holding onto the beams of the bridge hours ago, wishing to let go, but scared to fall.

And Kaneki grabs her hand. When the barriers are broken at his feet, he grabs her wrist and slowly hikes up the end of her sleeve to reveal the cuts perfectly traced on the subtle skin of her wrists. Lines and lines of different size and thickness, red and white, old and new. His heart bleeds in the deepest part of his chest.

"Touka..." he mutters, her perfume of spring engraves his face through her hair. "Why..."

He hears her sigh, a broken sigh; despair coming out from her chapped lips.

"I lied to you. When I told you that my dad left home... I lied. He killed himself, hanged himself in the backyard. I was ten years old then."

Her body thaws slowly, he feels her tense muscles gradually unwinding, releasing the air she kept inside her chest for so many hours. And Kaneki burns, eclipsing her body while the city lights rain upon them through the damp windows. And Touka wonders, as her eyes fall shut, if this is how death looks like, lights penetrating through skin until you become nothing, a hushed dance that no one can see.

"I'm tired, Kaneki, so tired..." she sighs and Kaneki senses that she's crying. The weight of her head against his body grows heavier and he envelops his arms around her shoulders. "We should do it together, you know? The bridge. We should do it together."

"T-Touka..."

"I had fun today," she presses her face against his chest, clinging her fingers to his arms. "You're different. You're an idiot, why didn't you talk to me before? Moron. You should have talked to me, you should have done it... you're an idiot..."

Kaneki's eyes close, leaning his head against the back seat, tears painfully burning his eyelids.

"I know."

"It's a shame." Her whisper slowly fades away and it's as if she's falling asleep in his arms, slowly, and then all at once.

 _We should do it together._

That's the last thing Kaneki hears before he nods off.

* * *

 **Spring.**

* * *

Cruel.

Touka is not wicked, or mean, or spiteful, she is cruel.

If a storm blows down a house or crushes a tree, no one says the storm was mean. It was cruel. It acted according to its nature and something or someone, unfortunately, was hurt. Touka Kirishima is a mystery, the kind of mysteries that are worth unraveling, the kind of mysteries that take an entire life to decipher, and it's strange, because Kaneki desires death above all else and still, he finds himself wishing for a new day to solve another clue of the eternal mystery that Touka represents to him. It's as if, one day to another, he had found a reason to wake every morning.

But Touka is cruel.

Sometimes she smiles, sometimes she ignores his phone calls. Sometimes she looks for him, desperate, during the nights and yet, other times she claims not needing him at all. His phone rings with an infinite number of apology messages, drunk and shattered, misspelled words that Kaneki didn't answer because he fell asleep. She begs to see him, says she's sorry for calling him a fucking loser and begs that she wants to see him now, in this moment, and Kaneki grabs his jacket to escape through the window of his room and meets up with her at the nearest park. Then, as if reduced back to a little girl, Touka buries her face against his chest once more, lying on the grass in front of a swing that bounces along with the wind.

"'You should hate me," she laments, over and over again, flush against his chest. "I'm nothing but a piece of shit. I'm terrible."

"You're not."

"You must be so tired of me." She replies, stubborn, and Kaneki frowns. Touka is cruel. "You should walk away and leave me here alone."

Just as everyone else does sooner or later.

"Don't talk like that."

"You're too good..." Her words lose their spitefulness. "When I'm with you... I feel good. You are good to me."

Kaneki sighs, closing his eyes and wishing for things to be different. But Touka needs him and till now, he has never provided comfort to anyone. He's the loser, he's the failure, he's the one who wants to die; the one who relies on the smiles of his best friend Hide to convince himself that he still has a reason to keep living. Then, she appears, broken and shattered, pleading for an energy that Kaneki doesn't possess. Two souls searching for their place in a constellation with no stars.

When Touka feels better, she returns to her previous position, right beside him and both stare at the starry sky. He likes it, Kaneki thinks. When Touka watches the stars with him, he likes it. Because the only thing that matters is what's up there and the melancholy that surrounds them is not strong enough to get to them. It's as if, for just a brief moment, both were happy.

"And that's Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System."

Touka's eyes follow Kaneki's finger that stretches up to the populated starry sky, finding at the highest place a huge ball of light that glows with far more intensity than the others, standing out markedly. Touka's lips open groggily, hipnotized while the petals of the cherry blossoms overfly the skies around them like snowflakes in a fairytale.

"I've never seen a star so big before," she whispers, impressed.

By her side, Kaneki nods.

"It is considered, since ancient times, as the brightest star in the southern constellation Centaurus. They say that it's at a distance of 4.37 light-years from the Sun."

She frowns, tilting her face to one side to stare at him accusingly.

"You know too much," Touka replies, she doesn't understand. "You always have an answer for everything. How is it that you know so many things?"

Her question makes him giggle.

"I read a lot, that's all."

Touka gasps, eyes coming back to the stars again.

"I wish I could be smart like you."

Oh, but she is.

She is.

Touka doesn't know it, but she's one of the most brilliant girls in the entire school. Kaneki dares to think she's the girl with best grade average. Math and Biology are her specialties and the hours she spends on working inside that coffee shop called Anteiku are way too excessive. After all, Kaneki had long since noticed the bags under her eyes every time he waits for her on the bench in front of the cafeteria and Touka abandons the establishment, tired, and takes a seat by his side; dropping her head against his shoulder in such an intimate way that makes him want to puke. Like a rollercoaster. Touka is that rollercoaster.

But she doesn't know it.

Touka knows nothing.

"You are," he whispers, eyes not daring to look away from the sky. "And very pretty, like that star over there."

Kaneki stretches his hand, amused and pointing out one particular star. However, Touka doesn't look at the star, nor his finger pointing it out, she instead looks at him. Frowning, lips trembling, an intense blush burning her cheeks that don't feel flattered by his comment. Touka stares at him, impenetrable under the dim and she doen't get it.

She just doesn't.

"I'm not." Her answer sounds as though Kaneki's words were an insult, as if she is correcting a mathematical calculation with the wisdom of a girl who is an expert in the subject.

He blinks, confused and stares at her sideways. Touka avoids his gaze when his eyes meet hers and stares out at the sky again, but Kaneki knows she's not looking at the stars. In her eyes there is nothing. Nothing at all.

"Y-Yes you are..." Kaneki replies, feeling like an idiot. He's never told a girl that she was beautiful before, with the exception of Rize Kamishiro, the only girl with whom he shared a disastrous first date. However, his body is filled with the impulse of saying it again. He wants to shout it out and his lips become an accumulation of colors that Kaneki wants to pour out into her to paint the uncolored parts of her soul. Strange, very strange and curious, the way that he desires to paint her with colors he never had jammed inside a world of black and white like the pages of the books he so fervently reads. "You are very beaut—"

"I said I'm not." This time her voice is firm and agressive. With a sigh, she sits up on the grass, showing him her back, enduring an inner turmoil that Kaneki doesn't understand at all.

He stares at her rigid back while she embraces her knees and he sits up to imitate her posture.

"Hey, what—"

"When are we going to do it?" she asks suddenly, and her voice doesn't sound so harsh anymore.

She sounds impatient.

Kaneki blushes violently. Did she mean...? Maybe she was talking about...

"W-What do you mean?"

Touka sighs, angry that he's so stupid to not understand.

"The bridge." She clarifies and turns around to look at him. Her eyes recover the lost spark, but it doesn't look the same. It's a spark so sharp as a razor and Kaneki feels that it's cutting him to pieces. "We said we'd do it together, remember? You promised. When will we do it?"

For the first time in many years, the proposal doesn't sound so tentative as it used to.

Because he wants to die... right?

That is what he's always wanted. To be able to free himself from his miserable life, from the demons that haunt him every night, from the abuse of his mother, the absence of his father; to die and leave everything behind. Isn't that right?

Especially now that he met her. The girl from the train, the girl that embraces him as if her life depended on it and makes the best rabbit lattes he has ever tried in his life. He can't imagine a life without drinking her rabbit lattes.

But it doesn't matter, because Kaneki wants to die.

Right?

"I-I told you," he replies, looking away. He can't hold her gaze, he just can't. "When Autumn comes, we're close. I... I'm still writing my poem for the literary contest in school. I want to publish it before we... do it."

Touka's features slowly start to unwind.

"Oh, right. How's the poem?"

"It's going along well, I think."

They remain silent for a couple of minutes, staring absently at the grass with drowsy eyes, when Touka speaks again; her tone firm as an oak.

"I want you to take me on a date."

Kaneki blinks.

One... two... three...

He looks up at her, muddled, thinking that maybe he imagined it and Touka is staring at him with way too much determination.

"W-What?"

"A date." She repeats. "Before dying, I wanna have a date with you. Drink coffee, eat cake and shit. I've never had a date before. A guy from scholl, Rio, invited me, but I rejected him. He was a jerk, but you're different. And we're gonna do it together. Tomorrow I have the day off at work, you wanna hang out?"

A date, it's a real date; a date with her...

A date with Touka Kirishima.

Kaneki nods his head repeatedly, feeling the intense burning of his cheeks and inexplicable tickling at the tips of his fingers.

"A-Alright..." he gasps, feeling the amazing realization begin to sink in. A most unfathomable reality. "Y-Yes! A date, right. Tomorrow. Perfect."

She nods.

"Fine. I'll see you in Anteiku at four. If you're late, I'll beat the shit out of you."

With nothing else to say and without waiting for an answer, she gets up from the grass and takes her jacket, holding it against her chest. Then she turns away to walk the same path that she took to get here, the same path towards home. And Kaneki remains in silence, alone for almost half an hour, trying to process the unexpected situation.

A date... He has a date.

Touka and Kaneki will have a date.

Out of impulse, he gets up from the soil, bouncing up as if a thorn pricked his butt. He gasps, both hands wringing at the top of hishead, eyes observing everything around him, as if searching for something he had lost. His heart is pounding fast, his hands start to sweat, his chest is burning with fire and suddenly he wants to sing a song. With shaky hands, he grabs his phone and inputs a number he knows by heart.

He waits.

One... two... three...

 _"Mmmhprgh?"_

"Hide, hey Hide!"

Hide, however, couldn't find himself to be as enthusiastic as his friend for calling at 4:00 AM.

 _"Go to sleep, idiot. I'll do you a wedgie if you ever call again at this hou—"_

"Touka and I have a date!"

* * *

The date is a disaster.

Touka arrived half an hour late and she wasn't responding to any of his phone calls when he tried to contact her, wondering what the hell was happening. In that moment, fear engulfed him, plagued him with dreadful thoughts. What if... What if she tried to do it on her own...? Kaneki never felt so scared for someone in his life, but he was able to lower his guard when he spotted her walking down the street with her rabbit backpack. Her hands, however, were clenched into tight fists at her hips that for a moment Kaneki though she was going to punch him, but the only thing Touka did when she stopped in front of him was take his arm and drag him into the cafeteria ready to start their date.

The one that, again, was a disaster.

She was in a foul mood during those two painful hours, yet she was persistent in having this date. They sat there with a rasberry cake and two mugs of coffee between them. She said that she had a fight with Yoriko, her best friend, because she had found out the marks on her wrists. Kaneki thought it was fair that her best friend showed concern for her, he himself recieved tons of motivational speeches at the hand of his friend Hide where the words "You must live" and "Don't be a suicidal bastard" were repeated constantly. Touka, on the other hand, didn't look to be moved at all by Yoriko's concern. For Touka, it was a nuisance. For Touka, her friend's concern could ruin her Autumn plans with Kaneki. For Touka, such a thing would offer her a reason to live, when Touka didn't want any.

Besides, it was raining outside.

"If she wasn't so tiny and fragile, I'd have punched her."

Kaneki only sighs, resigned in defeat.

Why must all of his dates have to be a disaster?

"I think you should calm down a bit..."

"Calm down? Fuck off."

He clenches his jaw, sudden irritated.

"I think you're being very unfair and selfish," he huffs, frowning. "She cares about you. She's your best friend, if life sucks, at the very least you should try to hide it in front of her. And y-you know what? Yoriko's right. This thing you do is stupid. Hurting yourself that way, cutting your wrists like that... it's stupid. Everything you do is stupid. Why do you continue with it? I told you not to. We've decided, everything will end in fall, but you don't seem to care. I was waiting for you for half an hour and I was worried, you know... I tried to call you, but you never answered, do you have any idea of how worried I was? I-I thought that... that you..." He paused for a moment, swallowing down his rattled nerves. "Y-you should have told me you would be late. You keep pushing away the people that worry about you because you're scared. W-Well, I'm scared too, and I still worry about you, I always worry about you. I-I... you... this is a shitty date. I hate you. forget about the date, everything is shit."

Touka stares at him in silence. The peaceful Kaneki she's familiar with is gone. Now there's a rosy-cheeked boy, stammering, sweating and trembling like a child and for an instant she doesn't hear any of his words.

"But whatever! I knew this would happen, I've never had any luck after all. My first date with Rize Kamishiro was a disaster. I poured apple juice over my pants by accident and she spread the rumor that I peed and everyone at school said that I—"

He stops when Touka's hands grab his shirt.

His words get jammed inside his throat, sticking on his tongue, provoking a sound that would have made him laugh if it wasn't for Touka's hands finding a place in his jacket. Kaneki blinks, trying to understand what the hell is happening. His eyes travel to her hands where her fingers sink firmly into the edges when suddenly a superhuman strength pulls him forward and when he looks up, she crashes her lips against his own.

The rain outside stops suddenly and the birds start singing with more intensity. His heart throbs with a burning flame, a pure fire and time seems to freeze even though Kaneki feels this heat linger, embracing him down to his bones. Her lips are warm, spicy, and sweet due to the raspberry cake and the bitterness from the coffee. The trace of her lips seem to heal all that he thought incurable, everything for which he wanted to die in the bridge that night until she appeared, asking his name when he had known hers all along.

Touka. Touka. Touka.

His usual mode of hurrying from one thing to the next was suspended; he had no desire for the kiss to end. Ever. It was clumsy, wet with inexperienced movements and short lived. The thousand minus seven centipedes inside his belly were replaced with butterflies, blue butterflies that reminded him of Touka. A kiss like this one was a beginning; a promise of much more to come.

The promise of hope.

Touka breaks off the kiss, her expression almost as shocked as his is and when Kaneki opens his eyes, words abandon him. He stares at her steadily, still as a rock with swollen lips wanting more, more, more. Touka blinks and the blush on her cheeks is so beautiful that Kaneki wants to scream.

"I'll see you tomorrow at the train station."

Without saying anything more, running away with the adrenaline burning on the tip of her lips, Touka gets up from her seat and walks away from the cafeteria, leaving him petrified on his place with a stupid smile and his heart on the verge of blowing up. He looks around, without knowing exactly what to do next when his eyes find Yoshimura's behind the counter and the old man simply smiles; he smiles with a wisdom of someone who knows much in life. Kaneki doesn't find the shame to look away before such exposition. His happiness far too abundant.

And suddenly he jumps with a sharp gasp, flabbergasted, and immediately grabs for his phone, dialing a familiar number.

One, two, three.

 _"Eh, Kaneki! You finally call, I have a—"_

"Hide! Touka kissed me! She kissed me!"

* * *

 **Summer.**

* * *

Peace.

All that he feels between her arms is peace.

It takes only a few seconds for him to realize, even if the truth is right in front of his eyes, eternity like life itself. He feels eternal in her arms. She's the cause of it. She's here. And seconds later he can feel her arms loop around him firmly, cradling him against her chest, as if she wants to make him part of her soul. Touka no longer is the mysterious girl that took the same train every day. She's warm, she's eternal, she's beautiful, and he is hers.

In moments like these, where he feels the warmth of her skin in the middle of a messy disaster of sheets and blankets on a comfy bed, where he feels her hands caressing his muddled black hair, where he feels her heart fluttering in sync with his own, her mild and tender breathing... Kaneki knows he's safe. He's safe from the yelling of his mother, he's safe from his fears, his demons, he's safe from the people that hurt him; he's safe from himself. Touka saves him, Touka is the safe harbor when the night is too cold and frightening. Touka is his salvation.

And sometimes, he's afraid he can't be hers.

"We should do something fun," he suggests, excited as he rarely is, excited as he has been since the day Touka kissed him for the first time.

Hide mocked him for months after that.

"What happened to you? It's as if you've become some kind of king of the world or something."

And Kaneki would smile in response.

"Touka. Touka is what happened."

"Touka is hot. Make sure to introduce me to her best friend." His friend snickers with a mischievous grin. "So when's the wedding?"

"I'd never invite you to my wedding, you would get drunk and ruin it. Hey, I was thinking, if I introduce you to Yoriko, what if we make a trip for the four of us? They gave you your driver's license, right? What if you borrow your dad's car and—"

And all of a sudden, in just one simple blink, Kaneki finds imself making plans. Plans for a future. A wedding. A new city with a new house. A cafeteria with books, tons of books. A dog. Even a new name, why not? The last words of the poet François Rebelais were "I go to seek the greatperhaps" and the last words of Thomas Alva Edison were "it's very beautiful there." Out of the blue, unexpectedly, surprisingly, Kaneki wanted to find the great perhaps. He didn't know where "there" was, but he was convinced that it was somewhere, and he was hoping it to be beautiful. If Touka was with him, it surely would be.

But Touka was cruel.

"Something like what?" she asks, caressing his bangs.

He can feel her hands trembling.

"I don't know, anything." He responds. "We can do anything we want."

One, two, three.

Touka doesn't reply.

One, two, three.

Kaneki incorporates, resting his chin against her chest to look at her straight in the eyes. She doesn't look mad. She looks beautiful, beaming, ethereal, and cruel. She raises her hand, touching his cheek and the way her skin feels when she touches him melts into every inch of his body. Her fingers are tender, painstaking, and Kaneki knows that he could spend his whole life like this, simply doing nothing with closed eyes and feeling her hands caressing his hair forever.

But forever doesn't exist.

"What's wrong?" he inquires with a whisper.

Touka continues twisting his hair between her fingers.

"Kaneki," she speaks and his name has never sounded more beautiful in someone's mouth till now. Touka waits, carefully picking her words, not daring to look him in the eyes. "Autumn start tomorrow, you know..."

"Oh."

 _Oh._

Right.

Autumn.

He almost forgot.

Kaneki sighs, nervous, and the centipedes come crawling back to eat at his guts again. How is he going to tell her? How is he going to tell her that he's confused? How is he going to tell her that he's not so sure about it anymore? How is he going to tell her that every night, before going to sleep, he thinks about seeking the great perhaps? How is he going to tell her that since he met her, life looks a bit brighter? How is he going to tell her that he has sang a thousand songs and written a thousand new poems since she kissed him? How is he going to tell her that she has saved him from his own hell, from committing a madness?

How?

He sighs again, sitting on the mattress, and the sudden change of attitude seems to alert every one of her senses. She takes a seat too, mildly perplexed.

Kaneki tousles his hair, trying to put in order his ideas.

"T-Touka, uhm..." he starts, undecided; uncertain. "The truth is that... Look, I was t-thinking and—"

 _Riing. Riiing. Riiiing._

Touka's phone rings, disrupting his pathetic words. As if Kaneki had said nothing. Touka ignores him and takes her phone, attending the call with a bored gaze. It's Yoriko. She says that Ayato, her brother, got into trouble again. She says that she should go there immediately. Kaneki contemplates the way that Touka's eyes fall shut with heavy exhaustion and opens them again to find absolutely nothing. No spark, no color; nothing.

And Kaneki is afraid.

"Alright," she says. "Thank you, Yoriko."

She shuts her phone, sighs and looks at him.

"I gotta go. I'm sorry."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

Touka shakes her head.

"No." She always says no. Why does she keep saying no? "It's fine. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

She doesn't even look at him. She leans to one side, grabbing the black shirt that lies on the ground to dress quickly, ready to abandon the comfort of the bed, but Kaneki stops her. He holds her arm, drawing her near to him and he hears her exasperated sigh. He forces Touka to look at him and he can notice the red tint in her eyelids. She's trying not to cry. Kaneki combs her hair, brushing it away from her face, the one that is shorter than before, the one she dyed weeks ago. Pale blue, bright and hopeful like the morning sky. Kaneki slides his hand to her cheek.

"Hey," he says. "Everything will be alright."

 _I'm here. I'm here with you. I'm not going to leave you. You're not alone._

She nods.

"Sure."

She doesn't really believe it.

And Kaneki fears she will do something crazy.

He leans over and before his lips touch hers, she's already closing her eyes. For now, she lets herself go, she lets Kaneki lips whisper against her how much he loves her, and he does, he really does. Their noses rub, she feels intoxicated by the intensity of his breath and she wants to stay here forever; ignore her brother, ignore her responsibilities. To stay with Kaneki inside of this room and never go out. Never...

But she can't.

If she stays here forever, Kaneki might leave her.

When their foreheads touch and Touka finally breathes, she brushes the hands that hold her cheeks.

"I love you too." She says in a whisper that only Kaneki can hear.

She loves him. She loves him. She loves him.

That's the problem.

* * *

 **Fall.**

* * *

People say that the first love hurts.

But that's not true.

The first love unveils immaturity to contemplate the world as it really is. A transition from the opaque to live, from ruthless to ephemeral, from death to life, from immaturity to maturity. The first love teaches us how to live, it teaches us the meaning of courage, of taking risks, of promises. The first love makes us stronger. What really hurts is falling into the reality that, inevitably, the first love never lasts forever.

And Touka knew that very well.

Her shoes bombard the damp streets due to an old rain with constant splashes, like peals of a storm. Splash, splash, splash. One two, three, while the cold numbs her fingers and tears come down her face, transforming into ice before they can touch her chin. Her hands tremble, her tummy shrinks and the leaves of a recent Autumn welcome her when she arrives at the main park of Tokyo. It's the perfect moment; it's now or never. Things are too full of life in the spring months. In the summer, they're strong and won't let go. Autumn is the time. In autumn everything is tired and ready to die.

To die. That was the plan. She hasn't eaten all day. She hasn't slept all night, crying against her pillow and ignoring every single one of Kaneki's calls. She didn't go to school either, she didn't even get out of bed after Ayato slammed the door to leave home.

Leave.

Touka's feet bleed while trying to follow his silhouette, speedily fading away into a withered city that swallowed him whole, taking him away from her. She ran, ran, ran, until she fell on her knees witnessing a reality that she could not ignore anymore; all the people that Touka ever loved would end up abandoning her in the end. Her mom, her dad, her baby brother...

It was just a matter of time before Kaneki does the same.

That's why she called him hours ago, wondering where he was. That's why her fett travel the empty street ways to the park, in where Kaneki told her he was along with Hide, drinking coffee. That's why, that's why she's here, right now, in front of him, trembling and wanting to disapppear.

It's now or never.

Kaneki hears Touka's steps coming down even before she can say his name and Kaneki can see that something is not right. Both flick up their gaze towards her, who walks with both hands rigid at the side of heps. Kaneki and Hide exchange a quick glance and he gets up from the bench to welcome her with a starnge and warm smile, the kind of smile that Touka does not need right now.

"H-Hey, why didn't you pick up the phone? I tried to call you because—"

Touka disrupts him by grabbing his hand and dragging him into a corner, under the nearest tree; trying to find some privacy from Hide's curious eyes. Kaneki's smile disappears instantly and he fears the worst.

"Hey, what's go—"

"Let's do it." She demands, turning around once they find refuge under the shadow of a naked tree. "Today, right now. I want to do it no—"

"Hey, hey," Kaneki grabs her trembling face with his cold hands and she's unable to finish her sentence. He brushes the moist locks of hair out of her face and cleans the raindrops from her cheeks, but Touka shakes her head over and over again. "Hey, listen to me. What's wrong? Something happ—"

"It doesn't even matter! What's the point?!" She yells. "I want to do it now! It's Autumn already, what the point to keep on waiting? I don't want to wait anymore, you said we were going to do it in Autumn! S-So let's stop spinning around and let's..."

Kaneki's somber gaze is more than enough for Touka to not need to finish her sentence. It's not necessary. Kaneki holds her eyes with his own, defeated and Touka frowns, because she knows him; she knows him too well. In so little time, she got to know his essence as she knows every single scar perfectly traced upon her wrists. She knows his smell, tender and warm like summer. She know his movements, the way he touches his chin every time he lies, and the intense blush on his cheeks when she kissed him for the first time. She knows his favorite books, the way that he smiles when Touka says something stupid and feels smarter than her.

Kaneki's features sore when the tears pop out in Touka's eyes. She can't hold them back anymore.

"Touka..."

He regretted.

Kaneki regretted.

Without saying a word, without even moving her own lips, Touka dodges his silhouette and her feet start walking through the same path from where she came from, leaving him behind like everything else in her life. But, even if Touka claims to know him perfectly, there's a part of Kaneki that is invisible to her eyes. Touka ignores how much he loves her.

She feels his hand grabbing her arm, preventing her escape, forcing her to look at him.

"Touk—"

"Get off me!" Touka turns around, furious, and nudges his chest with all the strength she can find. Kaneki is on the verge of tears. "I hate you, I hate you! You promised me! You said we'd do it together! You're a piece of trash!"

"We don't have to do this, Touka..." He takes her by the shoulders, desperate, trying to convince her otherwise, but Touka's eyes are as sharp as her heart. She shakes her head, crying. "We can find another way... I'm sure that there's another wa—"

"Shut up!" Touka pushes him again and raises her hand to smack it against his cheek. The sound reverberates inside the park as a foggy echo, and Hide's face behind them is a poem. "You are a coward! You have always been a coward; you never had the guts to do it! But guess what? I have the guts. If you don't want to do it, good for you, go to hell! I'll do it myself!"

Touka turns around, ready to leave and her statement alerts every one of Kaneki's senses. His eyes go wide, scared as hell and the pain on his cheek can't eve compare with the terror that engulfs his body to a terrible possibility. He runs to her, pulling on her arm, trying to stop her, but Touka has ultimately decided.

"No! Touka, wait!"

She bolts to a run and continues to run and run as if the devil himself is chasing her, because he is. Kaneki runs after her until his legs ache and he loses sight of her silhouette in the middle of the city. Touka is fast, so fast and slippery like a rabbit. Her feet run to the bridge, climbs the edges and her hands cling onto the beams once again, while the sun dyes in gold the city of Tokio under a twilight and no one around her seems to notice that a young girl with blue hair is trying to disappear. The wind brushes through the bangs of her hair and the tears that travel her cheeks while she stares at the water moving furiously beneath her feet and the hours pass by and soon the sun is gone and Touka is still on her feet, holding onto the red beams.

One... two... three...

 _We can find another way._

No, no, no.

There is no other way. There has never been another way.

She shakes her head, hearing Kaneki's voice inside her mind. Why? Why did she know him? Why did she kiss him that rainy afternoon in the cafeteria? The first date she ever had... Why did she try so hard for things to turn out well between them? Why did she let him be the first guy to touch her in such an intimate way? Why did she allow so much? Why did she tell him that she loved him? Love is to destroy and to be loved is to be destroyed. Kaneki destroyed her, broke her completely, just as everyone else that abandoned her in the curse of her life. But at the same time, he also saved her. Touka laughed.

Ever since she met him, she laughed. She felt butterflies dance in the pit of her stomach every time he kissed her. She loved to sleep in his arms. She loved to fight him, the way he would always come back to her, as if he needed her, as if she was so vital for him as he was for her. She loved to watch him read, she loved it when he would read out loud for her and Touka would never pay attention to the words, keeping her eyes glued on Kaneki, his lips reciting the sentences of his favorite book and Touka would smile, taking the book out of his hands to kiss him passionately, making him giggle.

Idiot, idiot, idiot. Kaneki was a colossal idiot. They were supposed to die together, it was the main plan, he promised her. If they died together, they would be together forever and he would never leave her.

But now...

If Touka died, she would be alone. Kaneki wouldn't die with her. And if she lived, Kaneki would abandon her sooner or later; that's what everybody does.

She sits on the bridge, shaking, and stays there all night. Her eyes travel to the same place where she saw Kaneki the night she met him. The morning sun eventually brightens her face and she wonders if it could be like this forever. Sometimes, staring at things like the rising sun, the world existing before you... sometimes those moments freeze and the world stops momentarily. It only lasts for a second. And yet, somehow, you find a way to live inside that second, and if the moment is eternal, you can live forever.

That's what happens when Touka looks at Kaneki. The world stops and although the circumstances of life would always end up eating her alive, Kaneki was always there to freeze that moment in time for just a little longer. With swollen eyes and trembling lips, Touka plucks her phone out of her trousers and looks at the countless messages and lost calls from Kaneki. Her hands shiver. She called him a coward and yet she remained sitting on the bridge all night, without daring to jump. She holds back a sob and dials his number, but Kaneki doesn't answer.

She tenses.

She calls again. One, two, three. Nothing. She calls him ten times and still, Kaneki answers none of them. Then Touka starts to fear, her heart is beating far too fast, her hands become clammy with sweat and it feels like she's about to faint. She cares, she cares too much. She dials his number again, desperate, while abandoning the bridge, her feet march their way to his house. Why is he not answering? It doesn't seem like he is ignoring her calls, because each one falls directly to his voicemail. As if his phone is shut down. As if...

What if he did it first? What if...?

Touka begins to panic.

When she arrives at his home, she's surprised to see the lights off. It's 10:00 AM and Touka rings the bell, knocks on the door, screams his name, but there is no response. Noone responds to her plea. She surrounds the house until she ends up in front of Kaneki's window and takes some stones to throw at the glass.

"Kaneki!"

But there is no response.

Gasping and cursing, Touka climbs the nearest tree to land in the window, opening it with a strong squeak. There was definitely no one inside the house, so she knew no one would mind if she broke in without permission. The window was not entirely closed, so it wasn't too much of a problem to open it. Her feet land in the room, but the bed is empty and messy.

No, no, no.

"Kaneki!" she yells, taking a quick look into the bathroom, but to no avail.

Slowly falling into despair, she grabs her phone again and dials Hide's number. Surely he would know where Kaneki was.

Hide recognizes the number right away.

 _"Touka?"_

"Hide," she says, gasping. "Do you know where Kaneki is? He's not home, I've been trying to call him, but he doesn't answer. I'm worried..."

Hide doesn't respond immediately.

 _"I-I thought Kaneki told you..."_

One... two... three...

Touka fights to hold back tears.

"Tell me what?"

She fears the answer.

Hide sighs.

 _"Yesterday night he had a fight with his mom, after you guys... uh, well, talked. Kaneki came home a bit late and his mother went crazy, she broke his phone and kicked him out of the house."_

She kicked him out of the house.

She kicked him.

Touka covers her mouth with the palm of her hand, feeling as though a knife is slowly chopping her body into pieces.

Coward.

She called him a coward. Trash, idiot, and now his own mother kicked him out of the house. She left him without a home.

Touka's eyes shut tight, her body shivering like a little girl.

She was stupid, so stupid.

Why? Why did she have to yell at him like that? Why couldn't she be there for him? She never replied to his text messages, she didn't even read them. Maybe that's why Kaneki called her. Maybe, maybe... he needed her, he needed her as much as she needed him and Touka wasn't there; she wasn't...

"H-Hide," she stammers, tears burning her cheeks like a bloody waterfall. "Where is he? I... I... I have to talk t-to him, I have to apologize... I have to tell him that—"

 _"He's at my house."_ He explains and the answer slowly unwinds the tense muscles of her body, one by one. _"He will stay here for now."_

"Can I go see him? P-Please... I-I need to explain..."

 _"S-Sure, come over. I think he wants to talk to you too."_

She nods, wiping her tears.

"Thank you, Hide."

She lets out an exasperated sigh and when she sweeps the hair from her face, ready to leave the house through the window, somthing catches her attention against the desk. His backpack, open and messy, about to fall down onto the floor and a piece of paper near the edge, wrinkled and forgotten but with a title way too huge for her to ignore it. She frowns, slightly distracted, and walks over to the desk to take the paper in her hands. The title lays monstrous on the top, the handwriting scribbled with a blue tint.

Hydrangea.

Her favorite flowers.

Holding her breath, Touka takes a seat on the bed and discovers this wrinkled, old paper is a part of the poem that Kaneki was going to publish in the literary contest. Her eyes start reading the words with fear and for long, painful minutes she can't breathe.

She just can't.

 _Kaneki Ken. Poem for the literary contest._

 _"Hydrangea"_

 _I don't know her and yet, I think I do._

 _We've never talked before, yet I know the exact sound of her voice whispering my name in dreams._

 _She never looked at me, yet I know that her eyes hold power to overthrow all of my senses._

 _Her hair flutters within the wind just as petals from the cherry blossoms dance with impatience upon the sky. Watching her walk it's like witnessing spring, a spring that slowly turns into a withered Autumn. She picks up the pace and the petals she leaves behind turn into dried sheets that I've been collecting for years, the only thing I can get from her. Her inexpressive eyes, like stars far too tired to shine, and in the stillness of the night I wonder why my own heart beats._

 _Hurts. Looking at her hurts._

 _Maybe it's the color of her eyes, a turquiose so bright as my heart beats every time she's near me; little stains of blue, purple and gold, blending together as a painting on a canvas, like a constellation of stars existing together. Maybe it's her eyelashes, dark and generous as a dense forest. Maybe it's that spark, that shining light that stands like fire. Maybe it's just her._

 _Her, whom I've watched every morning inside a desolate train that led us nowhere. I used to count the little freckles upon her nose, like snowflakes that fall from the sky and never melt against her skin. The two little scars she has near her ear, the naughty dimple that parades on her cheek when she smiles, the color of her cheekbones when she's angry, the shimmer of her eyes when she looks at the stars. She's lovely, just like the poetry is a reflection of the soul. Her voice is like a portrait of her heart: wild as a fire, sharp as shattered glass, and sweet and clean as clover._

 _I'm a subtle drizzle, she's a fascinating hurricane. And in the quitness of the night I think about many things. I think that maybe it mustn't have been exciting to see a girl with purple hair in the station of an old train while the sun dropped over her like golden rain. That maybe I shouldn't have continued, remembering it as a lovely memory, that maybe I should have walked away when she kissed me across two mugs of coffee and one raspberry cake. That maybe she's the reason I've always been looking for and now that I have her in front of me, it doesn't matter the outcomes, it doen't matter what I do._

 _I'd end up loving her anyway._

* * *

When Touka opens the door to his room, she's surprised to find the window's wide open.

Hide said that he was resting in his new room and that he was probably sleeping. He said that Kaneki didn't have time to pick up his things once they got here and that he didn't want to go back for them that night. He said that Kaneki locked himself inside the room and didn't want to go out till now.

Till now...

The door closes shut behind her and she hold her breath at the sight of him. He's lying on the bed, backward, covered with too many blankets, hiding under them like a boy who wants to hide himself from the world. The main window is right beside the bed and it offers a beautiful view of the main park with a glassy sky that cries a rain that makes the treetops breathe. Touka sighs, walking forward and kneels before him on the floor, right in front of the bed. She stays in silence for a couple of seconds, staring at her own hands, the scars of her wrists, Kaneki's back, the sky through the window..

She's crying. She doesn't even realize she is until the tears touch her chin and her hands travel to her cheeks, ashamed, while she takes courage and whispers his name.

"Kaneki."

One, two, three.

She knows he won't answer.

Touka sets her gaze on the sky, the only beautiful thing she can see on such a horrible day.

"Ayato..." she starts, and her chest burns at the mention of his name. "He... left. He left the house the night I met you at the park."

She pauses, waiting for an answer.

But there is none.

She sighs again, staring at her hands.

"He... he was always very special. He was always full of life, unlike me. He enjoyed camping, when we were kids, my dad used to take us to the forest to make bonfires and roast marshmallows. But when my dad killed himself, things changed. I know that my brother always blamed him and never forgave him for what he did. He said he was a coward, that he abandoned us. I... I tried, I did the best I could. I worked so hard, I did everything so Ayato could afford a good education, I had to raise him by myself. But... it didn't work." She wipes at her tears, biting at her lowlwer lip. "Ayato started to get into trouble, he started to ignore me. He came home drunk and I... I couldn't take it. I know it was terrible for him too. When he saw me cutting myself for the first time... he thought I was trying to kill myself, he went crazy. I think he's hated me ever since then."

She takes another pause and for a moment, she can't breathe.

"I-I knew he was going to leave. I-I always knew it; he would threaten me about it. 'One day, you'll wake up and you'll never see me again, you'll see!' he used to say. Why would he want to stay with me, a stupid suicidal idiot like his father? And I didn't care anymore, if I lived or died, if he had to face the world alone... I thought I wouldn't care, what was the point? He was going to leave me anyway. Everyone does. Everyone walks out of my life sooner or later, w-what would be the difference if I do it first? I came to think that maybe he'd be better if I died. But that night on the bridge... I... couldn't and... then you appeared and... and I..."

Sobbing and weeping, Touka sits up from the ground and makes a tiny place on the bed, right behind Kaneki. The mattress is big enough for the both of them, so Touka snuggles behind his back, resting her forehead against him. Kaneki doesn't move, but she can feel his breathing, she knows he's awake.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she cries against his back, her tiny hand clingling firmly to his arm. "P-Please, forgive me. I said horrible things to you... Hide told me that your mom kicked you out... I'm so s-sorry, Kaneki. I was an ass, I was so stupid... I'm sorry. I... you... when I'm not with you I feel like dying, I just can't take it, but I was so scared... I thought that if we died together, then we'd always be together and when I knew that you changed your mind... It scared the shit out of me. Because I knew that you would leave me soon enough, but I hadn't had the courage to do it myself. I called you a coward... when the only coward has always been me."

Her body jolts with her sobs as her tears wet the mattress in moist blotches, Kaneki maintains his cool gaze on the wall, feeling Touka's hand sinking on his arm. He can feel her tears dampening the fabric of his shirt.

"I-I went to your house... I climbed to your room," she utters, and her weeping becomes rowdy. "I-I read your poem... Hydrangea. It was about me, right? You... shit... you wrote Hydrangea... you..."

Kaneki's eyes fall shut, trembling and Touka stops for a moment.

One, two, three.

"T-Thank you." She whispers. Her voice sounds like the voice of a little girl, coy and scared. "Thank you for making me so beautiful in your story. I... I... didn't know... that I was so pretty. I had no idea. I didn't know anything like an idiot. I was just a big-headed idiot. I was so stupid..."

Touka presses her face more firmly against his back.

"I don't wanna die. I don't want to, but I'm so scared." She sighs, trying to hold onto her breaths. "You know, there's this kind of songbird that thinks that it dies every time the sun goes down, but in the morning, when he wakes up, he's totally shocked to still be alive. So he sings a beautiful song. I've sung every morning since I met you."

With a deep sigh, Kaneki turns around, abandoning his old position to be face to face with Touka. She opens her eyelids, the ones she had closed and looks at him, surprised. She knew he was awake, but she wan't expecting anything from him.; nothing at all. His face looks blanch and tired, and his eyes are swollen from crying. She feels guilt weigh heavily onto her.

But he takes her hand.

His fingers loop around hers and Touka approaches while Kaneki covers her body with the blankets. They stay like this, silent for several long minutes. Kaneki raises his hand and with his fingertips erases the traces of her tears, brushing down stray strands of her hair and stares absently at her lips. Touka fondles his chin.

"Kaneki."

"I'm sorry about Ayato," he adds, looking at their joined hands.

He's so good. He's always been so good and gentle, even in the worst moments.

"I'm sorry about your mom," she responds in a whisper, resting her fingertips on his cheekbones.

Kaneki lets out a sigh, shaking his head.

"It's okay. I was going to leave that place soon anyways. I... I still have to pick up some stuff."

She gets lost in the color of his eyes, she sees the bitterness on his skin, and for a moment she wonders if they have made the right choice.

"Kaneki," she speaks again, and the mention of his name forces him to flicker his gaze towards her, finding in her eyes all the answers he needs. "What are we going to do now?"

And that is, in fact, a very curious question. What are they going to do now? Both stand in the same circumstances, both stand completely alone again. His mother kicked him out of the house. Her brother abandoned her. They don't possess any reason to keep on living, to keep going on when everything is so bleak. This would have been the perfect moment to jump off the bridge and it would have made so much sense doing it now rather than before; that night, the first time they met.

He can feel the tears in her eyes, waiting for an answer; impatient. Her stare takes his breath away, takes every single one of his words. It frightens him in every way, but she's that supernatural strength that demands him to fight despite his own fears. Kaneki fills his lungs with her scent, he breathes her perfume of spring, takes her hand again and outlines the shape of her fingers with his lips.

"I want to be with you." He says and the anxiety in Touka's eyes is huge, too huge.

He can't, he just can't go on without her. In this life or in another, he can't. So with the last breath he has—or what he thinks there's left in him—Kaneki pours out the little energy he has left, proclaiming his truth.

"I love you, Touka. I've never loved anything in my life, not even my own mother. I've always been alone, I've always been empty; I've always wanted to die... until I met you. I think everything happens for a reason and the fact that you spoke to me that night when we both were looking for the same thing... I don't think it was a coincidence. When I'm with you, I feel like I can do anything; endure anything. I'm so strong. I know exactly where my home is and that's so important to me, Touka, you have no idea how important it is to me."

His words crash against her fingertips, feeling each breath, his life.

Both are scared. Both are terrified, but their hearts beat with one voice and his hand holds on to hers firmly, and Touka wants to lean over and kiss him; freeze this moment forever. Both are broken, both are alone and yet, they have each other.

"So please, Touka, _please.._." he pleads with the last drop of his soul that's left, trying to save her life, their lives. "Let's live."

Let's live.

 _Live..._

It's a promise and Touka knows that there's no turning back. Kaneki's words reverberate in the air while a faint drizzle slides through the windows like crystal tears. And despite the cold that engulfs her and the rain that doesn't stop, Kaneki's hand between hers feels extremely warm, too warm. And even when she closes her eyes she can still feel him there, right beside her, providing her the heat that for so long she tried to find. Both are alive, both exist, and the bridge that was supposed to be an end for them ended up uniting them more than they ever thought.

But Kaneki loves her, and Touka knows she loves him too. In love there's no fear, her father used to say. There is not.

When Kaneki is by her side, fear does not exist.

Not anymore.

She sighs closing her eyes, nodding softly. She feels Kaneki forehead rest against hers.

One, two, three.

"Okay."

Both are home.

* * *

It took me years to finish this fic, but I'm very happy with the result. I've seen that there are not many touken AU's and I thought it'd be nice to post one. Somehow, this fic honors that suicide side of Kaneki, and the way that the love of people around him always impulses him to move on, to find a reason to keep living. I think love is the most important thing of all and it makes me happy to know that Kaneki is surrounded by people who loves him and wants him to be happy *cries*

By the way, thanks to my dear friend Timid-Mew (follow on tumblr!) for editing this!

Thank you all for reading!

 _ **—Mel.**_


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